The Thoughts of a Conservative mind.

This morning at the mess hall here in Iraq, I was watching the Armed Forces Network(AFN) when a Public Service Announcement came on (they don’t have paid advertising so this is what we get instead) that was reminding Military members that the APO/FPO (Military Post Offices) have delivery confirmation at that it is recommended to use that on your absentee ballot so that you know your ballot was received by your state.

In the 7th Congressional District in Washington State there is a race going on in which the two candidates are as different as night and day. On one side you have the incumbent Jim McDermott, who has been found in violation of a persons right to privacy, had a trip to Iraq prior to the war funded by Saddam’s Intelligence Service, has made derogatory comments about our brave men and women and who believes that the government knows how to spend your money better than you do. On the other side you have Steve Beren. A man of integrity, who supports our troops, who believes in putting our country and the American people before political showmanship, who understands and lives fiscal Conservatism and believes in all his heart that in America your dreams for a better future can become a reality if you are willing to work for it.

This is a no brainer here. I think it is obvious that Steve Beren is a man who has a vision, much like Reagan’s, of our country as the great nation it is. He is a man who believes in the American people and trusts that they can make better decisions with their own money and get more bang for their buck that way too. He does not believe in the Democrats plan regarding eliminating the tax exempt of 401k’s or creating another form of Social Security. Steve Beren is man who understands that America has enemies in this world and would not look at cutting our military spending by 25% like the Democrat party has vowed to do. Steve Beren knows that to create jobs you must cut taxes as this puts more money in everyone’s pockets which is the basic fundamental or Reagan’s proven trickle down economics. He understands if you raise taxes it leads to less jobs which in turn creates what I like to call “trickle down unemployment”.

These are just some of the reasons that Steve Beren is the only choice for Congress in the 7th CD. To vote for McDermott is to vote for the Socialism of America and that I assure you is something our Founding Fathers never intended.

The Buckeye Institute has filed suit against ACORN using the RICO Statute. This should be done in every state that ACORN has proved to be fraudulently registering voters (which is about half the states now).

COLUMBUS – The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based think tank, today filed a state RICO action against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on behalf of two Warren County voters. The action filed in Warren County Court of Common Pleas alleges ACORN has engaged in a pattern of corrupt activity that amounts to organized crime. It seeks ACORN’s dissolution as a legal entity, the revocation of any licenses in Ohio, and an injunction against fraudulent voter registration and other illegal activities.

Plaintiffs Jennifer Miller of Mason, Ohio and Kimberly Grant of Loveland, allege that ACORN’s actions deprive them of the right to participate in an honest and effective elections process. They allege fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN dilute the votes of legally registered voters.

In the complaint, Thompson cites an accumulation of evidence showing numerous instances of admitted fraud by ACORN employees, as well as individuals solicited by ACORN.

“In light of its hiring, training and compensation practices, ACORN should have known its conduct would cause fraud,” Thompson said. “It also should know that its conduct will cause fraud in the future.”

This is just one more reason I do not believe that we should have third party registrations conducted by either side. If people would actually do the responsible thing and register themselves then we would not have all these fraudulent registrations in so many states that could potentially lead to questioning the integrity of the whole election process. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue this is an American issue. If Americans do not have faith in the election process it directly affects the abilities of those elected to effectively govern.

Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

“I don’t even know the entire scope of it because registrations are coming in so heavy,” Davis said. “We have identified about 100 duplicates, and probably 280 addresses that don’t exist, people who have driver’s license numbers that won’t verify or Social Security numbers that won’t verify. Some have no address at all.”

The nonpartisan group works to recruit low-income voters, who tend to lean Democratic. Most polls show Republican presidential candidate John McCain with an edge in bellwether Missouri, but Democrat Barack Obama continues to put up a strong fight.

Jess Ordower, Midwest director of ACORN, said his group hasn’t done any registrations in Kansas City since late August. He said he was told three weeks ago by election officials that there were only about 135 questionable cards — 85 of them duplicates.

“They keep telling different people different things,” he said. “They gave us a list of 130, then told someone else it was 1,000.”

FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton said the agency has been in contact with elections officials about potential voter fraud and plans to investigate.

The State Elections Enforcement Commission has opened an investigation into allegations that a community activist organization submitted at least 10 false voter-registration cards in Bridgeport.

One of the phony registrations was for a 7-year-old girl in the Marina Village housing complex, whose age was listed as 27 on the voter card.

Another registration came from a man who later said he couldn’t have completed the voter card purported to be his because he was in jail on the date of the document.

Joseph J. Borges, the city’s Republican registrar of voters, filed the complaint with state officials after months of local complaints on the tactics that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, was regularly filing applications that were ruled ineligible.

In response, a Bridgeport leader of ACORN on Tuesday night called the charges “part of a concerted and coordinated campaign by conservatives and the GOP to attack and discredit ACORN.”

Milwaukee County prosecutors Tuesday charged a convicted felon with illegally registering himself and others to vote between his conviction and his sentencing.

The complaint accuses Adam Mucklin, 22, of registering to vote in June, after he was convicted of battery in April, and after a judge told him he couldn’t vote as a convicted felon. Later in June, Mucklin signed up to work as a paid voter registrar for the Community Voters Project, something else he couldn’t do as a convicted felon, the complaint says.

A recent opinion from the staff of the state Government Accountability Board says no one convicted of a felony can ever serve as a registrar, a stricter standard than the previous interpretation that registrars only had to be eligible to vote.

Under Wisconsin law, felons can’t vote until after they have completed their sentences and are off probation or parole. For Mucklin, that would not be until Jan. 10, 2012, the complaint notes.

The group blamed inefficiency and lack of resources for problems such as being unable to spot duplicate voter-registration cards or cards that may have been filled out by workers to make quotas.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, has turned in at least 65,000 cards to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in the last year. The board has investigated potentially fraudulent cards since August.

The group has faced similar inquiries in other large Ohio counties. And Nevada state authorities recently raided ACORN’s Las Vegas headquarters searching for evidence of fraud, according to the Associated Press.

Local representatives of the organization told Cuyahoga board members that they don’t have the resources to identify fraudulent cards turned in by paid canvassers who are told to register low- and moderate-income voters.

Cuyahoga election workers flagged about 50 names on suspicious cards. The cards were to register the same names, raising the possibility that canvassers shared information when trying to make quotas.

“This is not something you can catch with your internal controls, apparently,” said board member Sandy McNair at the meeting.

New voter registrations closed Monday in Lake County with possible record-breaking numbers and simmering allegations of fraud and racial discrimination.

Elections board Director Sally LaSota said more than 12,000 voter registration forms are waiting to be processed from recent days before the county knows how many potential voters are ready to cast ballots in the Nov. 4 general election.

“It may be a record,” she said.

Porter County has processed at least 3,500 voter applications since the spring primary in May, officials there said.

However, the large influx has brought new controversies.

LaSota said Monday representatives of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, a grassroots activist group conducting registration drives, dropped off 2,000 new voter applications last week in Lake County.

I finally got to watch the VP debate last night here in Iraq and I must say it was pretty good. I feel Palin did exceptionally well and Biden did to….up until the point he decided to distort, exaggerate and flat out lie to try to make his point. The MSM has been utterly silent about these lies and distortions; yet if it had been Palin who made these claims they would have been all over it. Little Green Footballs has the following links to just some of the lies:

Finally, I would like to point out that Senator Biden, a lawyer who was once the head of the Judiciary Committee, mentioned that it was Article I of the Constitution that spelled out the powers of the Executive branch. Well Senator Biden you are wrong. Article II spells out the powers of the Executive Branch; Article I deals with the Legislative Branch.

Of course I am not expecting the MSM to bring any of this up as it is obvious that Obama/Biden can say anything they want true or not and it will not be reported. I guess the MSM is still to busy trying to decipher what Palin’s wink meant.

Recently in a news conference, Gov. Chris Gregoire had the following to say: “We have hit rock bottom in this campaign, and it is only June.” She went on to say, “I call on my Republican opponent Dino Rossi to denounce the BIAW and these ads and instead run a campaign focused on good policy and the issues.”

Well, a week later Gov. Gregoire launched her own attack ad against Dino Rossi.

It would appear to me that Gov. Gregoire is being a bit hypocritical if she can launch an attack ad a week after she demands that Dino Rossi denounce the BIAW attack ad against her.

Yet; that is not the only story I see here.

Gov. Gregoire stated that she wants both parties to run on “a campaign focused on good policy and issues.” Here are my questions to Gov. Gregoire: How is it good policy to accept money from tribal gambling to pay for the 2004 recounts and then reach a gambling compact that eliminates any type of revenue sharing?

How is it good policy to receive third-party PAC help from a PAC (Evergreen Progress PAC) in which one of the biggest contributing members (who donated $545,000 from SEIU) you are currently negotiating pay and benefits contracts?

It appears to me that to Gov. Gregoire, conflicts of interest and hypocrisy are going to be part of her quid pro quo campaign.